A West Wing-related thought

[avevale_intelligencer]

I've moved on to the West Wing now, and am watching episodes and reading such scripts as have been published (not enough I say) and I came in my reading to the bit where Ainsley Hayes is justifying her opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment by saying that as a Republican, she believes that every time the government passes a new law, it leaves people with a little bit less freedom. I take that to be an accurate statement of one of the planks of Republicanism, and address it as such after this wise:

Laws are passed to deal with specific things, and should be dealt with specifically. "Freedom" is a fuzzy generality and doesn't exist in that form. The law against murder means that one is not free to kill someone else, at least not and get away with it. A law against paying a woman less than a man means that one is not free to pay a man one dollar and a woman seventy-nine cents for doing the same work. A law against abortion (to cover all extremes) means that one is not free safely and legally to have a foetus removed from one's body. If that freedom is important to you--if you want, or need, for people to be able to shortchange a human being for their efforts in your behalf, or if you want, or need, for people to be able to murder someone with impunity, or if you want, or need, for women to be able to terminate an unintended pregnancy and live through it--then you fight that law. You don't fight it because you looked at the gauge and there's less freedom in the tank than there was when you set out. Looked at in that way, all laws should be fought, even the ones that you might think make sense, and no new laws should ever be passed, even ones that we find later on we sorely need.

There are laws that should be fought. There are laws that should never have been passed. But "because they take away our freedom" is a stupid reason for fighting them. Of course they do. That's what they're for, mostly. The question is, is that particular freedom that is affected by that particular law...a freedom you want people to be able to exercise? And are you willing to stand up and say so in public?

EDIT: to sort out phraseology in the middle there. You should fight what you believe to be bad laws and fight for what you believe to be good laws whether they affect you directly or not.

Comments

[pbristow.livejournal.com]

"I have that same imp"

So is it the imp that gives us an impulse? If so, what kinds of ulse might we get from other mythlogical creatures that hang around near us?

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

Oh, something entirely ulse.